My brother has a 2002 Kia Sportage 1.6 motor. He's had good luck with this car but all of a sudden it is using water like crazy. He's been told they are bad engines by some and others say it's just a head gasket. It pukes out water everywhere and misses and sputters. Any help appreciated. Has a little over 100 thousand miles on it.

Someone pulled a pop top on one of the cans they recycled to make the engine out of. Seriously, you could be looking at many things. Head gasket to heater core. Get a pressure tester and find out where it's going. Don't run it long, since there is a possibility that the coolant is going into the oil.

Remove the radiator cap and start the car, when the temp. goes up you should see lots of bubbles in the coolant reservoir if the head gasket is leaking compression gases. Also you should see coolant leaking from the tailpipe, another thing is check the dipstick for coolant.

Thanks for the suggestions, I know a bit about American cars but not about foreign. Its toast, with the rad cap off if you start it up it does a great imitation of Old Faithful. Did a search on google but came up with no info on whether these are typically bad engines or not.

Our 2000 has 126K on it, just replaced the timing belt. I would advise people who think these throw away cars will go to 250K like a Buick or Lincoln rethink the idea.

They are a little fragile, and you have to stay on top of them to get your money's worth.

You definitely seem to have a head gasket problem. It's not the worst hting in the world, but when you get it fixed be sure and reassemble with a new timing belt, around 40 bucks. If you do it later it will be about 400 to replace.

As far as whether they are bad engines, I will say not really. The majority of the medium to small cars now come with a rubber band timing belt, which I hate. The basic engine is fine, the wasted spark system is elegantly simple, The drive train is anyone's guess. I had the tranny go out just after the warranty was over. Others I know had better luck.

If I could control things better I would trade at 80K miles and keep warranty covered cars.

Well I must have the exception because my 2000 Kia Sportage has just rolled over 260k miles and is still going strong. I have, however, had a lot of luck and the help of a competent mechanic type over the years. The truck was involved in an accident sustaining $9000 worth of damage when it was only 6 months old. They would not total it since it was still valued at $14k. Next, Jiffy Lube tried to kill it in 2004 by putting the wrong gear oil in the transfer case. Since then, I have had regular maintenance repair, but little else. It still runs like a trooper. I do believe I might have lost the 4 wheel drive in last years blizzards, but haven't had that checked yet to make sure. And I think the clutch is just about to give up the ghost, but otherwise, still solid.

Would I buy another Kia? In a heartbeat.

BTW, the dealership told me at 95k miles when I looked into trading that they NEVER see these trucks with that kind of mileage.